Eight is enough

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News

November 3, 2010 - 12:00 AM

An eight-member city council will be seated to govern Iola starting in April.
The city governance issue was settled once and for all Tuesday when Iolans voted 965 to 734 to reject a charter ordinance that would have seated a hybrid five-member city commission.
So without a charter ordinance to establish any other governing body, the city by default resorts to an eight-member city council — two councilmen from each of Iola’s four voting wards — plus a mayor elected at large.
Iolan Ken Rowe, who spearheaded a petition drive to force Tuesday’s vote, said he was pleased with the results. He had long advocated an eight-member council after Iolans voted on April 2009 to disband the existing three-member commission.
“But this isn’t about who’s right, but rather what’s right,” Rowe said. “The people of Iola got to make this decision, not three commissioners.”
With the referendum now past, even harder work remains, Rowe said: convincing interested citizens in seeking a seat on the new city council.
“What I would love to see is three, four, five or more candidates from each of Iola’s four voting wards,” run for the positions, Rowe said.
The news also was cheered by Iola Mayor Bill Maness, who noted he campaigned for a more representative governing body when he first ran for local office in 2007.
“I’ve always thought that a three-member commission doesn’t represent the community as well as a larger governing body could,” Maness said.
Maness said he would encourage Iola’s two other commissioners to act promptly on an other issue, scheduling evening meetings, to expose more Iolans on how local governments function.
Having the meetings at night would permit more candidates to file, Maness offered, because there would be fewer work restrictions.
“I will bring it up, and even if we don’t act on it, it’s something the new council can take up when they’re seated,” Maness said.

TUESDAY’S vote was the third regarding Iola’s future governance in the past 19 months. The April 2009 vote to disband the existing three-man commission triggered an effort by the existing commission to deploy a citizens committee to recommend the size of Iola’s next governing body. The committee ultimately recommended a seven-member commission, although enough arguments came from its members to convince commissioners that a second vote was needed.
The second vote — a non-binding one — came down in April in favor of a five-member commission over either a seven- or nine-member governing body. Commissioners used that vote as the basis for Charter Ordinance 17, setting a hybrid, five-member commission, featuring a mayor as a member, with one commissioner coming from each of Iola’s voting wards.
But a petition drive in September prompted the most recent vote.

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